it. was. a day of mourning and protest in tunisia the funeral of a slain opposition leader is marred by violence with protesters clashing with police this comes against a backdrop of a general strike that has paralyzed the country. and in egypt violence erupts once again in the streets with petrol bombs thrown at the presidential palace after thousands took part in anti-government protests. and historic budget agreement for the e.u. which aims to cut brussels red tape may now be undermined by bureaucracy itself as the european parliament threatens to block the deal. plus president obama's nominee

to head the cia faces kept calls from and tired roland protesters for seemingly gets an easy ride from lawmakers over his targeted assassinations program. you're watching argue with me lucy coughing up. in tunisia clashes between mourners and police have marred the funeral of a secular opposition leader whose assassination has led to chaos in the streets and a crisis in parliament violence erupted near the cemetery as demonstrators threw stones and set cars a blaze while police responded with tear gas adding to the turmoil the country has been paralyzed by a general strike artie's mayor for notion is following the developments in tunisia as you can see many people have gathered here today for the funeral sofa chokri

belaid one of the most prominent opposition leaders who was killed on wednesday and seen standing situation here on the ground remains very tense and very valid tile and that is definitely struck me in that relative stability that we've seen here although in two thousand and eleven revolution we speak more to people here it's quite a small square but it's packed with people with flags and all of them actually chanting from time to time and to government slogans many people we have been able to speak to here to come here they say that the leader over not a party. is personally responsible for this murder well these are very strong accusations actually but we've been hearing that from too many people. who see it was a symbol of dignity this is a political assassination and that means that the repression and violence is not over this is a crisis. this is

a crisis that people want change again slogans of revolution of democracy protection working class and poor people that didn't work we can see it that is very close to. what happens this is a sign. of what could happen in the county if we don't find very quickly some concrete. solutions what we see here today and what we've seen here in the last two days in the country actually it's a day job. it's a mirror situation with what we've seen here that what we saw here two years ago in the last two days following the assassination of took privilege there have been many protests not only in the capital tunis but strong the country and there have been many more lashes between police and office she's focused and we've heard that least one police officer was killed but definitely there have been much more injured people this is a very bad situation here in the country but fears

a growing that it may turn even more violent and it will go even further if there is no solution immediate solution this is why people are saying that they're preparing for the worst earlier i spoke to author and activist for osing manji who explained why the assassination of the opposition leader holds such dire consequences for tunisia. to importance of. shukri belayed. cannot be underestimated is assassination as it is a profound. effect on the two listed population he has been an outspoken standing spokesperson for justice in to this here he has been critical hold the. party. and in particular he has enormous credibility with the trade union you could as you can see there's

a general strike been called immediately upon his assassination i think but. a new phase of the revolution. into noosphere good your delusions you never knew what the outcome is is going to be and i think there are. signs that this could easily do. disintegrate into some kind of civil civil war hopefully it won't happen. angry protesters have thrown petrol bombs at the presidential palace in egypt where thousands have taken to the street protesting against the government the violence came despite the deal that some of the opposition leaders had with the islamist president morsi last week well for the latest now we're joined live by our correspondent on the ground in cairo bell trail . break it down for us what are you seeing on the streets there what's going on at the moment right now. well thousands gathered today here in

egypt in the main running points as part of friday and they had to keep calling for the president to mohamed morsi to uphold the demands of the revolution here in the capital i'm standing above to her square one hundred to still got it chanting against their president and also his organization is rather had earlier there were violent scenes that front of the presidential palace are the groups attempted to storm the building with them. talks. actually take asked by the security forces you also fired to water cannons up and however the clashes have really been more violence outside of the capital we've had reports all clashes with security forces and anti-government protesters in alexandria. shake with a possible death income for sake of about yet to be confirmed as people are really feeling quite a lot to gain here in the country in two weeks on now from the anniversary of the january twenty five revolution now the what's the background here i mean what

really prompted this massive outrage in the first place on the streets. this is been going on now for about two weeks as i said just a genuine twenty five of a nation on a very surreal when people came back to the streets they said nothing has changed in the country in the last two years because of the key issues from the key social issues have yet to be faced by the president including police reform the shortage of bread and fuel and of course the constitution which protesters say was dropped to try and isn't this dominated constituent assembly pushed through by the president in the last week there's been a lot of and i'm off to there was footage through crossed from last friday's protest in front of the presidential palace of a protester being dragged snake kids and brutally beaten and in addition there was a young protest from time to mohamed again the who reportedly died in custody from torture people activists human rights groups have been saying this was a key grievance against the mubarak regime so it shouldn't be happening now in

a part of the post president poster of a nation president the biggest opposition coalition and also some asian fronts that are part of sticking my demands which is asking the top minutes to resign they want a national salvation government under the constitution to be revoked this happens then they should be on have dialogue with the president president isn't moving on these key issues so we're looking at a divided egypt continuing in the near future. bill true our cairo based correspondent thank you so much for filling us in on those details. what's been hailed as a historic deal reducing the e.u. spending for the first time ever the e.u. leaders have struggled to reappoint now can still be undermined by the european parliament or leading factions have already said the budget is not a sceptical artie's tests are still are reports from brussels for more than twenty four hours of negotiations of bickering. all the call along the corridors what's

next more fighting more negotiations and more bickering yes after a deal has been made here at the e.u. summit the next step is the european parliament they will have to approve this and we're already hearing reports that the leaders of the main political groups there don't accept the deal that was reached here and the president of the parliament martin shultz last night in a statement he had been sounding very angry at the proposed cuts and now we're already seeing the cots that the twenty seven leaders will impose on the budget he said he's not going to put a signature on something he sees as excessive so if we saw countries leaders coming here protective of their national interest we're going to see political parties protective of their own industries or whatever they represent in parliament and that is going to be a long long time of negotiations it could probably take about three months to get any answer out of there and we're seeing it's already negative david cameron came here saying that he wanted to bring down the general amount of the new budget and

in fact he did he got the amount he wanted it's about one hundred eight billion euros however what's interesting here is he's going to go back to the u.k. now just to explain that if you case contribution is in fact he was able to protect the rebate of the u.k. but let's not forget that that rebate the money that the u.k. gets back to you is hinged on the contribution to agriculture now the agriculture subsidies has been cut. therefore the rebate will also go down and therefore the contribution would fact go what we're already doing from a euro skeptics especially coming from his own party saying that role well done you're coming back here saying that it's a victory for the u.k. but in fact we're going to be paying more just at a time when he's going to be posing the question he says will be around referendum whether or not they should even be a member of the european union the twenty seventh if he's reelected in twenty fifteen so whether or not this is a real victory for david cameron he will have to answer that when he gets back to me you can read what european union leaders may be breathing

a sigh of relief after reach are going to agree ment on the union's budget but frustration is still high in spain where thousands of protests and government cuts and its crisis plagued education sector full coverage for you on r.t. dot com. so i have in a program a draft bill in the u.k. aims to clear the way for private all my messages to be monitored by the government but of course there are concerns of the hose measures are taking national security is simply a step too far that and more for you after a short break. if

you could make it without your going to school tomorrow. the great.

welcome back will president obama's choice to head the cia has faced of course a tough confirmation hearing at the u.s. senate but it actually wasn't the lawmakers who decided to put john brennan in the spotlight over his role in the controversial drone program now the session itself was interrupted several times by protesters who held up signs such as calling for the stopping of cia murder now those signs were referring to the use of drones by the united states for targeted strikes against suspected terrorists now john brennan defended the program which he himself helped develop as ethical and just saying that a strike is carefully vetted by the government however human rights groups claim that the program has in fact led to a large number of civilian deaths so did u.s.

lawmakers actually hold brennan accountable for his counterterrorism policies or his gay nature to can have the answers. what most people expected to hear was how does the u.s. government make decisions as to who should be on their kill list and mr brennan would certainly be the most appropriate person to ask because he is known to have been in charge of the kill list and he's known as the architect of the administration's targeted assassinations program so the question of who the drones are targeting was critical and one of the senators asked john brennan whether there should be at least some judicial oversight over those executions by drones and here's what he said none of those actions or to determine past guilt for those actions that he took the decisions that are made or to take action so that we prevent future action to protect american lives so the rationale that john brennan gave for not going to court is that the administration is not in the business of punishing individuals but it's in the business of preventing attacks he basically

says the u.s. government could execute people for what they haven't done yet you would expect a follow up questions from lawmakers as to how the administration determines the level of threat as these people constitute let's imagine an angry yemeni man who writes in his blog dag he hates america as you can see is wife died in a drone strike and he wants to take revenge is that enough to justify him being killed by a drone there are so many questions about how the administration decides to put someone on their kill list and yet there was not near enough grilling on the part of the senators to get specific answers prior to the hearing a memo was released which the justice department handed over to congress and according to the memel the government can kill people overseas even without evidence that they are actively plotting against the u.s. the paper states that the u.s. would be able to kill a u.s. citizen or non-citizen overseas went down quote an informed high level official of the u.s. government determines that target is an imminent threat to them here for also

suggest that such decisions would not be subject to judicial review and outlines a broad definition of what constitutes imminent through. everybody expected tough questions on drones but that did not happen john brennan got away with very broad answers like the program is saving lives and that you should take the administration's word for it. well the largest manhunt in the history of the los angeles police department continues with teams combing the hillsides of a ski resort where the suspect is believed to be hiding thousands of police officers are searching for christopher dorner who is accused of having allegedly murder two civilians out of one police officer now in a rambling internet manifesto dorner had declared war on long foresman officials as well as our family is accusing the l.a.p.d. of quote internal corruption racism and the concealment of excessive force now for more analysis on this story we're joined live by michael ruppert investigative

journalist and actually a former l.a.p.d. officer himself sir thanks so much for being on the program now as a former l.a.p.d. officer what do you personally make of dorner is accusations against the department i mean do you see any validity to these claims or are they simply the ramblings of a disturbing divisional. well first of all let me say that you know having been a detective in an accomplished investigative journalist i do not accept the manifesto as it has been presented to the public as necessarily being authentic complete to their serious changes in the writing style and that leads me to suspect that it may have been tampered with however with regard to his specific allegations about his case and i'm currently reviewing legal documents that are becoming available online i have to tell you that with regard to his allegations about a rich trial board hearings. and. very egregious unprofessional

coverup excessive force but also management malfeasance perjury and a lot of other serious things i believe in one hundred percent i do not think that the culture that existed you know abt from way back to the time when i was there and through rodney king i do not think it has been a limited i do believe there is a good old boy network there and i believe that just with regards to that chris dorner. did was a big deal now sir before we move on to more details about the case with dorner for our international viewers who may not be familiar with the sort of the issues involving police brutality perhaps excessive force that the things he touched upon in the l.a.p.d. can you expand on that and sort of explain briefly for our international viewers what the actual problems of the department are. well the los angeles police department of course has had a history both good and bad mixed but a lot of unfavorable incidents of the use of excessive force of racist behavior as was evidenced by the rodney king beating and the rodney king insurrection or riot

at ninety ninety two. there have been from the rampart division scandal years later and many other incidents the l.a.p.d. has been shown has a consistent cultural problem with racism coverup and cronyism within the department that has victimized i think and probably driven out a great many good officers i look for similar reasons that's quite interesting now of course when we go back to dorner i mean this man is accused of allegedly of murdering three individuals he reportedly had a hit list of some forty potential targets i don't know if that's true or not but at the same time his case has surprisingly triggered an avalanche of support messages on the internet some even hailing him as an anti system truth fighter what would you explain is behind this the support that's emerged. well i i don't condone what's happened and i wanted violence and killing to end but more important

i want him to be brought in alive which is something i do not think that the l.a.p.d. law enforcement or the u.s. government wants under any circumstances she has stood up and he is an accomplished experienced covert warrior he has worked with special operations personnel i have many years of experience working with him and and dealing with the u.s. army special forces navy seals this is a warrior. trained many levels above anything most local police departments would be from familiar with the skill sets he's a threat he hasn't been caught yet and he is articulate he was an officer in the u.s. navy honorably discharged he served some serious respectable combat duties he had command and this is the this is not a flake this is not some guy with a high school diploma who became a cop and for that reason he has both symbolically and rich and in a real very real physical sense a threat because he has stood up. and and i don't think that anybody wants

him to come in alive on the government side and i think he should be brought in a lot. right well and there's also been some information in that news helicopters or perhaps being prohibited from following the manhunt which has sparked speculation at least that the authorities could perhaps try to take him down without giving him a chance for a day in court what do you make of that. well like i said i come from a cia family and i've spent a great deal of time with with the special operations warriors his skills that mystery craft is far superior to any law enforcement asked. of tracking helicopters means not they were using helicopters to track the man hunt means nothing he's several steps ahead of law enforcement look at him and everything else is just show at this point they found his truck burned in big bear and i firmly believe he's had months to prepare this operational plan his legal appeals ran out in two thousand

and twelve so he's had many months to prepare a plan and he's four or five steps ahead of law enforcement at this point he probably had a time delay device to burn his truck in big bear he was probably hundreds of miles away i think that at this point law enforcement has no idea where he is well it certainly sounds like something out of a movie michael c. ruppert an investigative journalist and former los angeles police department officer weighing in on this very bizarre story as it develops thank you so much there thank you. well in the united kingdom a document described by some as a snoopers charter will be given another push by the government after the intelligence and security committees that the proposal locked into out of the bill is designed to help authorities track online activity of citizens and to retrieve personal web data or taste our fourth looks at how such measures could power up national security. the main area of concern surrounds this the draft communications data bill and proposals in it that critics say see the public left wide open to

having their facebook accounts or twitter e-mails read anything that they visit online the websites that they gate logs by the government now understandably those plans have proven hugely controversial with critics labeling it the snoop is charter now perhaps more concerning is the latest report by the intelligence and security committee and they'd like to see a nationwide surveillance regime implemented now the government say that they need to do this to catch criminals and stop terrorism but there's lots of the members of the public saying where are safeguards when it comes to what we do online will seek more about this i'm now joined by professor and sneakily to the director studies security and intelligence studies at the university of akron thank you very much for joining us you're in support of the draft communications data bill i heard you describe yourself at a recent talk of the skunk at the picnic if these fees and these proposals are so

unpopular why are the government pushing them through all the time when government is pushing them through because the government realizes that they're needed some thirty million people use the internet to communicate with each other each day in the united kingdom people in this country fully accept that for more than one hundred years. their telephone conversations are likely to be mine if they're seen as a national security risk if there is a suspicion that a particular person is engaging serious organized crime sex trafficking or terrorism the government can then institute pro as a member of the public who if i do my emails for a well if you don't want your e-mails. more engaged in any kind of illegal activity your e-mails would be proof if you want if

you want complete drugs don't write any letters to friends don't speak to the moment don't send them photographs of yourself very much for joining us the first city is the house that is the solution maybe is the time for a big log off in case someone is actually watching serve. london well under some other international stories in brief right now. a suicide bomber has blown himself up near a security checkpoint in a northern mali city of but the attacker him self was the only casualty this is the first known suicide bombings since french troops entered the country whose northern half was ruled by islamist extremists france now wants you in peacekeepers to take over security as it prepares to end its mission there. a series of car bombs killed at least thirty six people in shiite areas of iraq on friday terry and ethnic tensions intensify ahead of provincial elections in april now the bombing

targeted an outdoor pet market in baghdad as well as a vegetable market in the hill a province south of the iraqi capital now recent weeks have seen insurgents carrying out almost daily attacks on security forces as well as civilians in an attempt to undermine the shiite led government. scuffles are broken out between former political prisoners as well supporters of the georgian president in his country's capital now the violence has erupted a saakashvili was going to deliver his annual state of the nation's speech the president was forced to change the venue several times after the country's parliament refused to essentially to provide him with a platform someone suggested this could be a sign of the leader's waning power held in the west as an exemplary democratic ruler saakashvili had lost popular support and the result of his crackdown on the opposition as well as claims of human rights abuses artie's aleksei are reports. georgia has performed miracles we moved from being

a failed state or be one of the top business nations in the world while it would be high to be academic freedom according to the world bank number one fighter with corruption worldwide many people started to believe in the stations people started to believe the mockers it was because it is george really a beacon of democracy and freedom not from your viewpoint when he's universities rectory refused to build a prayer room he helped organize a ten thousand strong peaceful student rally but it ended with his arrest and sentence of four and a half years behind bars. guards could just walk into our cell and start beating us for no reason the even put twenty year old students in wheelchairs and prison one of the inmates went insane because they showed footage of how his wife was being raped. georgie thought he'd be spending his time with murder isn't drug barons himself among academics architects and right all jailed for having

a different opinion to the country's leadership. works as an advisor to the minister of the penitentiary system and used to be classmates with saakashvili she believes the astonishing number of prisoners in georgia during his reign was to a large extent personally driven. he had often been joked out in school he directed his revenge against his former classmates when he became president most of them were either stripped of their businesses or put to prison in his presidency we've had twenty five thousand people in jail. shocking video of prisoner abuse in georgia in jails went viral and effectively diminished the president's party support by more than a half inch lost both the election and control over the country it's not yet known whether second street will face prosecution of the prison torture allegations the four two hundred political prisoners the change of power men the chance to walk free because like us really will for many remain as georgia's president until october but he's powers have already been transferred to the prime minister if

anyone is to be has already declared a national wide amnesty of political prisoners but experts say there is socialization may take several more years alexi russia azzi reporting from belief in georgia. well that's it for me this evening but stay with us here on r t cross talk with host peter love though as up next. secretary of state hillary clinton recently testified to congress in regards to the attack on the u.s. consulate was killed an american ambassador in benghazi libya during the testimony couldn't rather calmly said things like that the revolutions that sprang up during the arabs.